Trump’s only interest is what’s in it for him. It’s could be the principle reason he wanted to become President of the United States.
Hold that thought and consider Trump’s decision to prevent scrutiny of his Mar-a-Lago golf club list. Those of whom he has privately spent time with. It certainly attracts more questions: What does he have to hide from public view? What are the extent of Trump’s private business interest? How much is he profiting from being President of the United States? What is the extent of his conflicts of interest?
Robert Reich says, “Trump’s will be the most ethically challenged administration in American history.
“Trump has spent 25 days of his presidency at Mar-a-Lago, but the White House refuses to disclose who he has met with during these trips. In response to an inquiry by ethics watchdogs, the Justice Department claimed the visitor logs are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Several groups plan to appeal the government's decision in court.
“A recent report also found that dozens of lobbyists, business executives, and defense contractors are spending big bucks on membership fees at Trump's golf clubs to gain exclusive access to the president.
“This isn't the first time the Trump administration has sought to keep the president's meetings secret. The White House has also stopped releasing its visitor logs. . . . We have no clue who he's meeting with, what's in his taxes, or how involved he still is with his business dealings.”
Here’s a part of the story reported by the N.Y. Times:
“The Trump administration on Friday escalated a battle with government ethics groups by declining to release the identities of individuals visiting with President Trump at his family’s Mar-a-Lago resort during the days he has spent at the private club in Palm Beach, Fla., this year.
“The surprising move by the Department of Justice, which had been ordered in July by a federal court to complete its review of Mar-a-Lago visitor records, came after weeks of promotion by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the liberal nonprofit group known as CREW, that it would soon be getting the Mar-a-Lago visitors logs.
“Instead, on Friday the Justice Department released a State Department list of just 22 names — all of them members of the delegation of the Japanese prime minister — who visited the club in February for a meeting with President Trump.
“The dispute centers on what kind of records related to private individuals visiting the president should be open to public inspection. The refusal to disclose the full list of presidential visitors’ names also brings renewed scrutiny to the president’s private business empire and raises questions about why the administration would want to withhold information that could reveal possible conflicts of interest.
“CREW and its partners in the effort — the National Security Archive and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University — sued in April to get access to presidential visitor logs for Mar-a-Lago, the White House and Trump Tower in New York. CREW requested only a list of people explicitly visiting the president, not, for example, all Mar-a-Lago members or other guests who happened to be there on those days.”
Here’s the full story:
By Eric Lipton
